IOG SISGrass Professional Football Grounds Team of the Year

The Awards Dinner was held on the 1st November 2017 at the National Conference Centre in Birmingham.

In attendance were over 650 people from the Grounds industry including suppliers and grounds people from all over the UK and abroad.

The Club’s Grounds Team had been nominated back in August and were up against a very strong list of other clubs from Leagues 1 & 2, National League, National Leagues North and South, Scottish Leagues 1, 2&3 and The Welsh National Leagues.

We spoke to Grounds Manager Gareth Lester, who told us what was involved in being nominated for the award: "I had to initially fill out an application form about what we did as a department in respect of the maintenance carried out on all the pitches, the amount of usage that we have had over a season, how we manage our budget, any staff training that we do, what our machine resources are like and also if we have any other people using the sites for anything from training camps to TV adverts.

"They also looked at our health and safety management, machinery maintenance procedures and also our fertiliser programmes for the pitches.

"This all had to backed up with evidence of records that we keep and also photo’s that we had taken from other events that we had outside of the normal footballing programme.

"After the table top judging had been done by the IOG I then found that we had made it through to the final two and we were up against Dagenham & Redbridge from the National League.

"We then had a site visit from the IOG Regional Pitch Adviser to make sure that what I put on the application was a true reflection of what we did at the club.

"This visit was carried out in late August and the feedback was very positive as has been all the feedback so far this season from our own management and fans to the away teams and fans.

I think over the last two and a half years I have introduced quite a few changes as to how the pitch is maintained, in respect of what we do and what we use product wise and I think that everyone will agree we have one of the best surfaces in the lower leagues. We are a small team and work very hard at what we all do and for that I am very grateful to the three Michaels - Curtis, Steele and Warburton."

Everyone at Bury Football Club would like to congratulate our Grounds Team for deservedly winning this award, and thank them for their continued hard work!